The outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel opens the International Motor Show (IAA) on Tuesday. This year a lot will be different for the organizers, the uncertainty factors are greater than ever before. On the one hand, the IAA will be the first major trade fair in Germany to be held as a face-to-face event since the lockdown in spring 2020. For the first time, an IAA is no longer just about new cars, but also about the mobility of the future, which is why the name of the event changed to "IAA Mobility". With a new trade fair concept, the IAA is also intended to approach those interested parties who do not come to the exhibition grounds and do not want to buy an admission ticket with a variety of stands and initiatives in the squares of downtown Munich.In addition to the uncertainties, the weather and possible clashes with demonstrators and environmental activists who have committed to blocking the trade fair plans are added to the uncertainties more than ever.

Henning Peitsmeier

Business correspondent in Munich.

  • Follow I follow

Tobias Piller

Economic correspondent for Italy and Greece based in Rome.

  • Follow I follow

"The IAA will be completely different this year because it is also in the city center," said Adrian van Hooydonk, BMW's chief designer recently. As he said, his team asked many people what mobility needs exist “in a medium-sized city like Munich”. Now they want to answer that and enter into a dialogue with the IAA visitors. The Munich-based car manufacturer wants to use its home advantage and welcomes those interested in cars away from the exhibition halls in the mini pavilion on Lenbachplatz and on Max-Joseph-Platz at the theater. Audi, Porsche and Siemens in turn use Wittelsbacher Platz. The organizing association VDA wants to turn the city center into an open-air exhibition as an “open space”. The downside of this plan: The beautiful places can also be inviting to all thosewho are not interested in a dialogue with the auto industry - but in a riot.

The Munich police are preparing for their biggest mission in the past 20 years. Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann has been warned: "The security authorities are seeing a significant Europe-wide mobilization from the left-wing extremist and left-wing autonomous spectrum," said the CSU politician last Friday. Up to 4,500 police officers should now be on duty every day during the IAA. They are supported by the federal police and emergency services from other federal states - especially from Frankfurt, where the IAA took place until 2019 when demonstrators stormed the BMW stand and trampled on cars.

This time it could be much worse. Because, unlike an exhibition center, the “Open Spaces” cannot simply be secured with a fence and admission controls. “It's going to be an adventure,” said a car manager who doesn't even want to imagine when radical groups like “Smash IAA” haunt the exhibition space. The Bavarian police are also expecting violent riots: road blockades, climbing and abseiling actions, sabotage and even arson are conceivable, said head of operations Michael Dibowski, referring to a call on the Internet calling for “the IAA to be disrupted in such a way that it never will takes place again ". Police President Thomas Hampel recalled a letter of confession after an arson attack on the Munich power grid in May this year, in which the call was made to attack the IAA.The fact that a new Bundestag will be elected two weeks after the IAA could exacerbate the situation even further.